Informed Delivery for Direct Mail Campaigns: How to Add a Digital Lift

By Lee Garvey

Most direct mail campaigns get one shot at the recipient’s attention — the moment the piece comes out of the mailbox. Informed Delivery gives you a second shot before that even happens, delivered directly to their inbox the same morning their mail is sorted. For mailers who are already paying to print and send a physical piece, that bonus digital impression costs nothing extra to add. It’s one of the most underused advantages in direct mail today.

Informed Delivery is a free USPS program that sends subscribers a daily email preview showing grayscale scans of incoming letter mail. For marketers, it’s a channel-within-a-channel: your physical piece is already in the mail, and Informed Delivery lets you attach a full-color clickable image to that notification — a “ride-along” that appears before the envelope ever lands in someone’s hands.

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What USPS Informed Delivery Actually Is

Informed Delivery is a consumer-facing USPS service with tens of millions of active subscribers who opt in to receive a daily email digest showing scanned images of their day’s incoming mail. The USPS captures these scans automatically during the sorting process using the Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMb) on each piece — so any automation-eligible mail going through the system gets scanned and shown to qualifying subscribers as a grayscale image in their morning email.

From the mailer’s side, the grayscale image appears whether or not you do anything. That’s the passive benefit — your mail gets a digital preview automatically. The active benefit is the ride-along campaign: a color image and clickable URL that you upload through the USPS Business Customer Gateway and attach to your piece’s appearance in the Informed Delivery email. When a subscriber sees their incoming mail and clicks your image, they can act on your offer before the physical piece even arrives.

The program is free for mailers. There’s no postage upcharge, no media buy, no subscription fee — just a registration account with USPS and a few minutes to upload your campaign assets.

How the Ride-Along Image Works

The ride-along is the creative element you control in an Informed Delivery campaign. Here’s what’s involved:

• Image specs: The representative image typically needs to be at least 300 x 200 pixels, submitted as a JPG or PNG. USPS sets specific dimension requirements — check Postal Explorer for current specs, as these can update.
• Clickable URL: You attach a destination URL to the image, making it a direct response vehicle. Subscribers who click go straight to your landing page, offer redemption, or sign-up form.
• Campaign window: You define the date range for your campaign, aligned with your mail’s expected in-home delivery dates. The ride-along appears in Informed Delivery notifications within that window.
• Reporting: USPS provides campaign performance data — total notifications sent, image opens, and URL clicks — giving you measurable digital response data tied to a physical mailing.
• Eligibility: The program works with automation-eligible First-Class and Marketing Mail letters and flats. Pieces must carry a valid IMb barcode, which Click2Mail applies automatically to every mailing.
• Registration: Mailers set up campaigns through the USPS Business Customer Gateway at businesscustomergateway.usps.com, which requires a free account.

Why Informed Delivery Adds Real Campaign Value

A Second Impression at No Extra Cost

Every direct mail piece you send already reaches subscribers through Informed Delivery as a grayscale scan. The ride-along upgrades that passive appearance into a multi-channel touchpoint with branding, color, and a call to action — for the cost of uploading a single image. For campaigns already investing in print and postage, the incremental effort is minimal relative to the added exposure.

Digital Response Before Physical Delivery

The Informed Delivery email arrives in the morning before most carriers deliver. That means a subscriber can see your offer, click through, and convert hours before they physically hold your piece. For time-sensitive promotions — a sale that ends Friday, an event happening this weekend — that head start can meaningfully improve response rates by reducing friction between seeing the offer and acting on it.

Priming Effect on the Physical Piece

Even subscribers who don’t click the digital ride-along have seen your brand and your message before reaching into the mailbox. That digital preview creates recognition — the physical piece arrives feeling familiar rather than cold. The priming effect is particularly valuable for acquisition campaigns reaching new prospects who don’t know your brand yet.

Measurable Data From an Otherwise Analog Channel

Traditional direct mail response tracking relies on QR code scans, unique phone numbers, or coded reply devices to measure engagement. Informed Delivery adds an additional data layer: USPS-reported open and click data that tells you how many subscribers saw your digital preview and how many clicked through. Combine that with QR code tracking on the physical piece and you have response visibility at multiple stages of the customer journey.

Setting Up an Informed Delivery Campaign

The setup process is straightforward once you have a USPS Business Customer Gateway account:

• Create a free mailer account at businesscustomergateway.usps.com if you don’t have one already
• Link your mailing to the campaign using your IMb Mailer ID — this connects the ride-along to the specific mail pieces you’re sending
• Upload your representative image — the full-color version of what you want subscribers to see alongside the grayscale scan
• Add your destination URL — the landing page, offer page, or response form where clicks should go
• Set your campaign dates to align with your expected in-home delivery window
• Submit for USPS review — campaigns typically require a few business days for approval, so plan ahead

If your mailing is going through Click2Mail, the IMb barcode is already included in your piece. You just need the USPS account and your campaign assets ready to go.

Ride-Along Creative Best Practices

The ride-along image does different work than the physical piece. It’s viewed on a screen, often on a phone, and it competes with every other mail preview in that morning’s digest. That context shapes what works. Use bold color and a clear, single message — a headline, an offer, and a CTA button or text — rather than trying to replicate the full design of your mailer. Think of it as a digital ad that promotes the physical piece, not a miniaturized version of it.

Match the offer in the ride-along to the offer in the physical piece so the experience is coherent when the mail arrives. If your mailer has a QR code, mention it in the ride-along so subscribers know to look for it. And test different ride-along images across campaigns — because USPS provides click data, you can see which creative approaches drive more digital response and apply those learnings to future sends.

Get More From Every Piece You Mail

Click2Mail automatically includes IMb barcodes on all qualifying mail, making every campaign Informed Delivery-eligible from day one. That means you’re already set up for the passive grayscale preview — adding the ride-along campaign is the only additional step to unlock the full digital lift.

No subscription fees, no minimums, and next-day mailing for most products means you can add Informed Delivery to your next campaign without changing your timeline or budget. Visit Click2Mail to start your next mailing and take advantage of every impression your campaign can generate.